Early morning came flat and grey over the Mazovian plain.
Radio noise filled the divisional HQ, a schoolhouse taken over for maps and telephones.
The chalkboards held grids and call signs.
A portrait of a long-dead headmistress still watched from the far wall.
Colonel Nowak stood over the main map with a pencil. "Report," he said.
The signals officer lifted his headset.
"Skierniewice posts no change. Patrols report engine noise across the river in the night. Could be trucks on the German side. No eyes."
"Which sector?"
"North of Łowicz. And again near Kutno."
"Write it. Flag it," Nowak said. "No one moves yet."
A captain folded his arms. "Sir, the men say they can hear them when the wind shifts."
"Men hear what the wind lets them," Nowak said. "We wait for photographs, not breezes."
The door opened.
A runner came in with three envelopes.
He looked seventeen, wet from fog. "Radio office says Warsaw wants confirmation. Any unusual movements?"
